


greed and glory (can i go where you go?)

by lowblow



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Feelings™, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Pre-debut, imposter syndrome, one too many wave metaphors, yeonjun centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23205127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowblow/pseuds/lowblow
Summary: All things considered, Yeonjun didn't think his dreams werethatunreasonable. All he wanted was to make it big and go on a world tour and win a daesang and kiss Soobin every day.Was that too much to ask?
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 32
Kudos: 1106





	greed and glory (can i go where you go?)

The time on his phone reads 11:13 pm. That’s not too bad, all things considered. Yeonjun has definitely stayed later than this before. 

He unlocks the screen for what feels like the dozenth time in as many minutes, squinting for a second as the auto-brightness adjusts. Then comes the mechanic ritual of flipping through apps with unseeing eyes before tossing it to the side again with a sigh.

He’d definitely stayed later than this, but the difference was he usually made every second count. He's efficient, competent and a fast learner — all those good things that kept him at the top of the assessment leaderboard week after week. 

But choreo practice had ended four hours ago and Yeonjun only rehearsed for two of them. He’d spent the other two lying on the floor of the studio with all the lights turned off, as one did. A rectangle of gold from the open doorway throws shadows on the opposite wall as the occasional staff member walks by, busy even at this hour of the night. Yes, that’s how it was, here. Everyone was busy and everyone had things to do — Yeonjun has no right to feel this way. 

He’s wasting time and he knows it, but for some godforsaken reason his legs, his whole body had decided to rebel and he just _couldn’t_. Get. Up.

It’s not that he’s tired — no, wait, that wasn’t right. Of course he’s tired. But he could, feasibly, do a few more runs. It wasn’t the tiredness that was keeping him metaphorically chained to the ground. Or rather, not a tiredness that he can attribute to physical fatigue. 

Yeonjun had been doing a lot of self-reflection lately, and he was beginning to realise that thinking? Thoughts? Were wildly overrated. He kind of wanted a time machine to go back to 300 odd BC and find whichever classical philosopher who'd decided that thinking was the hot new fad that all the kids should get in on and _just_ — just tell them to stop. Just tell them to be a bro and _stop_. 

Once you started the whole thinking thing, it was hard not to let it get out of hand. It was hard not to let it run away from you. 

But it's not bad, it’s not wrong to have aspirations, is it? He's not _twisted_ for having ambitions, is he? Greed was what made him get as far as he had, made him the person he was today. It drove him to aim high and work hard and not sleep and lie through his teeth, through the crackly phone receiver when his mom, sounding like she did when she was kind of worried but trying not to show it, asked him if he was okay. _Yeonjun-ah, when are you coming home?_

The days were getting shorter as Autumn blew in. He might have to give up his morning runs for the time being — it was just too damn cold.

All things considered, Yeonjun didn't think his dreams were _that_ unreasonable. All he wanted was to make it big and go on a world tour and win a daesang and kiss Soobin every day. 

(He seemed to be running a lot these days. Running without purpose, without a place to go;) 

(running out of time)

No, all he wanted was the rookie award, maybe a solo concert someday and to kiss Soobin, just once.

(Out of time for what? That was hard to say.)

All he wanted, all he _wanted_ was to debut and maybe hold Soobin's hand, just once. Just once, and have it be out of intent, because they wanted to touch each other and have it mean something.

It's not wrong. It's not too much to ask for.

Yeonjun lets his eyelids slide shut. 

  
  
  
  


The thing was this: Stuff had happened. Stuff that was making him feel strange and lethargic, when he really should be motivated to push himself more, or at the very least not mope about it in dark rooms. If Yeonjun were Taehyun, he could’ve spoken to Kai about it. If he were Kai, he could’ve gotten a hug from any number of willing, sympathetic people. If he’d been Beomgyu, he could’ve cried for hours on end as catharsis and come back with twice as much determination and resolve. If he were Soobin, well.

But Yeonjun isn’t any of them. He’s just him — good at a lot of things, bad at _dealing_.

Yeonjun's not as — not _elastic_ like Soobin. He can't snap back into one piece, pretend like everything is fine and normal when it's not. If he's stretched too far, there's a very real chance he might— 

"Break?" Yeonjun's eyes fly open. That hadn't been the voice in his head. 

"Time for a break, hyung?" Soobin says, holding up a plastic bag of takeout. He’s little more than a silhouette like this, backlit by the glow of the hallway.

Yeonjun realises with a hot flash that the corners of his eyes are wet. So much for not crying. He scrubs at them furiously with the back of his sleeve before Soobin comes too close and sees him in this state, pitiful and pathetic. It had been a good idea, turning off the lights.

 _You're so cool, hyung_. Soobin had breathed the words, in a sort of quiet wonder not too long ago after practice one day, when their dance teacher had demonstrated a new routine and Yeonjun had been the only one to get it right on the first go. 

_You're so cool._

He scrubs at his eyes furiously, with the back of his sleeve before Soobin comes too close and sees that no, Yeonjun isn't cool, he's just a guy who cries alone after everyone goes home and pays really close attention in class and tries hard, so hard to stay at the top because once you're Choi Yeonjun, #1 trainee at the most reputable entertainment agency in South Korea, you couldn't ever stop. You wanted it all the time. 

Try as he might, Yeonjun isn't humanly capable of squashing down that greed — to be first, to be best. To be good at everything. To be _cool_ , to have the others — _Soobin_ — look at him with sparkling eyes and talk about him in hushed, awed tones. 

Validation was one hell of a drug.

"We ordered jajangmyeon." Soobin says, dropping down next to him on the wooden floor of the studio. “From that place Beomgyu found last week.”

"Damn, without me?" Yeonjun says. His voice tries to quiver, but he catches it just in time. None of that.

It's too dark to make out, but he thinks Soobin rolls his eyes.

"I'm here now, aren't I?" He says, and wow. He's right. He _is_ here. Somehow Soobin was here right when Yeonjun was thinking about him because he had an _uncanny_ knack for knowing when Yeonjun needed him most. Or maybe Yeonjun just thought about Soobin all the time, enough to render all coincidences null and void. 

For a few moments the only sound in the room is the splintering of wood as Soobin snaps his chopsticks apart.

"Now, I already ate _but—"_ Soobin plasters on his most winning smile. It’s devastating— it could collapse cities, crumble kingdoms. "I was hoping my _favourite_ hyung would share some of his food since I came all the way here to deliver his dinner."

"Sure." Yeonjun murmurs his assent, still not shifting from his spot on the floor, "M'not really hungry." And it's this, that finally makes Soobin pause. There's a moment of quiet shuffling and then Soobin's face appears upside down above Yeonjun’s, his expression a cocktail of confusion and concern. It changes as soon as he gets a close look at Yeonjun, though.

"You okay?" Soobin says, and it's so. _Knowing_. The way he says it.

"Yeah, 'course," Yeonjun says instinctively, and then, "Ha. No, actually. Feels bad, man." There'd never been any point in lying to Soobin anyway.

 _Please don't_. _Don't ask_.

Soobin doesn't ask.

Instead he hums in response, blinking slowly as he looks at Yeonjun and Yeonjun feels incredibly… visible. Incredibly present, tangible, _there_. He wishes Soobin would stop looking at him like that, but at the same time he doesn't. Yeonjun wants Soobin to look at him all the time, but he doesn't want to be _seen_. Did that make sense?

As if sensing this, Soobin shifts his gaze to the container of jajangmyeon, moving to pull off the plastic cling film with careful hands.

"Is it something food can't fix?"

"Of course not." Yeonjun huffs, lies. 

"Then eat."

Yeonjun makes a half-hearted attempt to rise, but quickly gives up. The coolness of the wooden floor is too good to leave. And besides—

"Feed me."

Soobin pulls a face. "Hyung, please, and I say this with feeling, fuck off."

" _Feed me."_ Yeonjun whines, petulant, flapping a hand in the general vicinity of Soobin's knee. His palm connects harder than he means to and Soobin lets out a pained yelp.

" _Ow._ " He repeats pointedly, when Yeonjun doesn't immediately apologize.

Yeonjun winces – he'd forgotten to take off his rings, it probably stung. He pats Soobin's thigh sympathetically, muttering something about big babies by way of apology. Like Yeonjun hadn't been crying on the floor like a baby himself mere minutes ago.

He doesn't quite know how it happens, but he ends up propped against Soobin's folded legs as he mixes up Yeonjun's noodles, the squelching of the sauce loud in the studio. For all his complaining, Soobin is agreeable at his core (and just an all-round truly spectacular guy, or whatever) so when he holds out the chopsticks for Yeonjun to take a bite, Yeonjun only has to pretend to be surprised.

He clutches his chest dramatically, playing up the honest-to-god twist of emotion he feels. " _Soobinie!"_

" _Yes_ , I know I'm amazing. No, this will not become a regular feature."

"You too. Didn't you want some?" 

"I feel full just watching hyung eat." Soobin says in a perfect deadpan, making Yeonjun crack a smile.

Despite what he’d said before, he's suddenly ravenously hungry. He takes the food Soobin offers gratefully, poking him in the cheek as thanks. It’s so _soft_. Soobin has always had the softest skin. Yeonjun allows himself to pull and pinch the curve of it for a few more seconds before retracting his hand for his own good. His sense of self-restraint is a fickle thing at the best of times, and it seems to desert him completely when he's around Soobin.

“So get this,” Soobin says, in his best _I’m about to regale you with an only moderately interesting story but I’m so cute and naturally endearing that you’re going to be blown away by it regardless_ voice, “Kai came to me today and was like, ‘Hyung do you think I’d pull off bangs.’” 

“He already has bangs?”

“Right, but _apparently_ ,” Soobin pauses, fixing Yeonjun with an expression that can only be described as _fond exasperation_ , “He meant those thick, like, three-part bangs, you know, like an anime character? And he came to me ‘cause he wanted my trusty, expert opinion on this life-altering decision.”

“Never a good sign.”

“ _Shush_ — eat your damn noodles — So. I kinda wasn't paying attention 'cause I was watching a drama on my phone and Lee Jongsuk was having a fistfight with this bad guy on top of a building and then Suzy-sunbaenim chucked a _shoe_ at him and it was _super_ high tension and— and yeah, whatever, you get it.” Soobin flushes, embarrassed. _Oh_ _no._ "I was preoccupied, is the thing.”

Yeonjun can already see where this is going. His eyes widen. “God, what’d you tell him, Soobinie.”

Soobin sighs a long-suffering sigh. “I was like yeah, of course, Hyuka-yah, you'd look good with anything. And then shit happened. So, uh. Let’s just say the stylist noonas are gonna have some strong words for Huening Kai tomorrow."

“ _No_. No! Did he?”

Soobin’s mouth is grim but Yeonjun can tell he’s trying really hard not to laugh. “Taehyunnie has asked me to tell you to please not make fun of him when you come home today. He’s still delicate.”

Yeonjun snickers, clearly picturing the mortification on poor Kai's face when he realised what he'd done. "No promises~" he singsongs, scrunching up his nose. It would be up to Yeonjun to do damage control in the morning before Haerin-noona or whoever bit Kai’s head off for daring to take scissors to his precious, marketable hair. It’s still funny, though. He’s about to ask Soobin for the photos he no doubt clicked when the words turn into a yawn midway. 

“You should get some sleep, hyung. Final round of evaluations next week and all, we can’t have our ace tired.”

Yeonjun feels himself stiffen. He forces his body to relax as he says, “Why? You tired, Soobinie?”

“Eh— no, shut up. I mean fuck, yeah, I’m tired.” Soobin sighs again. He was doing that a lot lately — Yeonjun makes a mental note to tease him later about becoming an old man. “We all are.”

"Not _me,_ " Yeonjun scoffs, rolling up a sleeve to flex his triceps. "Look at these guns, they look tired to you?"

Soobin laughs, lightly punching Yeonjun's exposed shoulder. "What does that have to do with anything." They fall silent after that, their breathing subconsciously syncing up. Of course they're tired.

"You know, Wooyoungie told me that the last debut evaluation is the hardest part.” Yeonjun says quietly, after a while. 

“Wooyoung-hyung did?”

“Yeah. Apparently you gotta, like, do it over and over and _over_ again for different people on different stages under different lights until they think you’re good enough. Think the monthly evals but multiplied by ten.” 

“I mean, yeah, I figured—” Soobin tilts his head slightly to where Yeonjun has grabbed his left earlobe. “But I'm not too worried. We can do it, right, hyung? If we’re together.”

Yeonjun smiles as he absentmindedly plays with Soobin’s ears. “I know you’ll do great, Soobinie.”

Soobin is quiet for a beat, then another. When he turns to look at Yeonjun in the dark, the whites of his eyes are barely distinguishable from the black. “That’s not what I asked.”  
  


_(You're so cool._

Yeonjun knows Soobin wouldn't think that if he knew how, that day, when the five of them had been called into the circular conference room with the long glass table and told that they were part of the debut lineup, and that Soobin was going to be the leader, Yeonjun's heart had leapt and sunk in quick succession, a horrible little green thing squashing down on his elation, on what should've been great news. 

Soobin's jaw had fallen open, his gaze instinctively flicking to Yeonjun. For a fraction of a second Yeonjun could see his own shock reflected back at him before time had unfrozen and he'd schooled his expression into something more akin to pride and approval.

And Yeonjun _was_ proud, he _did_ approve. It made sense. Soobin was brilliant, Soobin was kind. Soobin had a soft, deep voice and the sort of calming presence that instantly soothed rising voices and tempers. Soobin knew what to say and when to hold back. Soobin took charge effortlessly, and people listened when he spoke. He’d comforted Beomgyu when he was homesick, walked Taehyun to school; taken small, nervous Huening Kai under his wing and broken his walls where Yeonjun had tried and failed. Soobin didn't let other people see the bad and ugly sides of him ( _not that he had any_ ).

It made sense.

But Yeonjun couldn’t help it. That greed, the need to be the best at everything had burrowed it’s despicable self into the rawest, most vulnerable part of his mind, if only for a moment. Yeonjun still hated himself, hated the him of back then, who'd heard someone else's name called out and thought _Why isn't it me?_

Yeonjun is _ashamed._ )

  
  
  


He plays dumb, feigns nonchalance. “Hm?”

Soobin draws closer, opens his mouth as if to say something and then stops, like he’d thought better of it. He focuses on feeding Yeonjun another mouthful of jajangmyeon instead, holding the takeout bowl under his chin so it doesn’t spill. 

“No— it’s nothing. Whatever. Whatever! If I don’t debut I have a _great_ contingency plan.”

Yeonjun snorts, despite himself. “And what would that be?”

“Secret.” Soobin winks. Ugh, Yeonjun wishes _he_ could do that. “What about you, hyung? You ever thought about it? What you’d do if you weren’t an idol.”

“I’m not an idol, _yet_.” Yeonjun reminds him, pulling at the knot on his shoelace until it unravels. 

Soobin waves it off. “Semantics.”

“Uh, let me think. I’d probably go to college, I guess?”

“College for what?”

Yeonjun needs a minute to ponder it. Everything he’d studied so far had to do with the performing arts, another brick in his pre-ordained path to a career on stage. Pursuing any kind of higher education with the goal of having a nice desk job working in an office someday seemed unimaginable. But if he had to give an answer—

“Probably… Art. Illustration.”

Soobin blinks at him. “You’d be a model?”

“Huh—? No way, as if.”

“Why not? You’ve got the face for it.” He says it so casually, Yeonjun wants to punch him right then and there for the way it makes his heartbeat stutter for a moment.

“Nah, just.” Yeonjun can feel himself growing warm. He isn’t one to get embarrassed easily, but he’d never really spoken to anyone about this before. “When I was a kid I kinda wanted to be a— don’t laugh, okay— a manga artist.”

Yeonjun bites his lip, nervous without knowing why. Soobin stares at him solemnly, looking for all the world like this information doesn’t phase him in the least. And he’d nearly have pulled it off too, if his body doesn't betray him a second later with a loud, unattractive snort before dissolving into giggles. 

“I told you not to laugh!”

Soobin shakes in silent mirth, setting the bowl to the side so it doesn't topple over in his outburst. “No, it’s just. It’s hard to mentally assimilate my image of the you of now with like. A thirteen year-old weeb.”

“I _wasn’t_ a _weeb_ —”

“Did you Naruto run everywhere, hyung? Did you read Bleach and think it was the coolest thing ever?”

“So what if I did? And it fucking _was_ , asshole.” Yeonjun sniffs, haughtily. “The ending sucked, though.”

“Oh, hard agree.” Soobin wipes a tear out of the corner of his eye, still giggling. “I can’t believe this. All this time I was thinking Hyuka and I were the only closeted weebs but it turns out you were one too.”

“Don’t lump me in with you losers.”

“You know what, hyung?” Soobin’s eyes shine when he leans forward to playfully knock his forehead against Yeonjun’s shoulder. “I think thirteen year-old you would’ve gotten along well with twelve year-old me.”

This makes Yeonjun smile. Maybe it's a side effect of the weird mood he’s in, but he feels oddly nostalgic. His dreams had changed a lot since then — and he's still mortified at how he’d once thought stabbing his sixth-grade crush with a cardboard sword was the pinnacle of romance — but a part of him is still fond of that scrawny, troublesome kid. He twists in place, swinging an arm around Soobin’s knee to get a better look at him. “I think they’d have been friends.”

Soobin chuckles, bringing a thumb up to swipe at the corner of Yeonjun’s lower lip. “Hyung, you’ve got sauce...” He trails off, his smile changing imperceptibly. The curve of it brings Yeonjun back to the present with a start. They’re _so_ close. How did this happen. Yeonjun can feel the other boy’s breath warming his skin. 

Soobin seems to notice this at the exact same moment as him. This close, there’s nowhere to hide. You’d have to be pretty fucking dense not to sense the pure, unadaultered want radiating off Yeonjun, cheeks slowly colouring with all the things he’d done such a good job of hiding so far. Fuck, he’d been so careful, how had he let this happen. 

But to Yeonjun’s surprise, Soobin doesn’t immediately pull back or laugh it off in embarrassment. His eyes are curious, full of something Yeonjun can’t quite understand. 

Soobin looks at Yeonjun's lips, tracing the shape of it with unreadable eyes before flicking back to meet his gaze, the silent question clear as day. _God,_ Yeonjun thinks, heady with the clean citrus scent of Soobin's shower gel so close, _we're going to kiss._

It wouldn't be Yeonjun's first kiss. No, that was a girl from his highschool with the cute bob cut and soft hands who'd confessed that she thought he looked really cool when he'd danced centre for the Winter showcase. They'd never dated, never gone further than that, but Yeonjun still remembers the smell of peach chapstick tickling the space under his nose when they'd accidentally missed each other's mouths, the inexperienced kids that they were.

It wouldn't even be his first kiss with a boy. Yeonjun had fooled around with a friend or two — fellow trainees like him when they were horny teens with nowhere else to channel it, as curious and excited as they’d been lonely. Cheap and cheerful comfort. That's probably what Soobin wanted now, and who was Yeonjun to deny him? 

His spine curves of its own accord and he has little to no control over the hand that settles on the back of Soobin’s neck. Time seems to slow down, everything quiet but for Yeonjun’s heart jackhammering in his chest.

It wouldn’t be the first time it’d done this. 

But Yeonjun thinks — he thinks too many things, to be honest, but he thinks — that this might be, like, the only time, the only kiss, that really mattered. The kind that would ruin him for all future kisses, with anyone else, forever. He’s not a romantic, not really, he doesn’t care for poetry or prose, but he thinks kissing Soobin might be like biting into a forbidden fruit or, or, opening Pandora's box — promising to be wonderful, brilliant, everything Yeonjun had ever dreamed it could be — but it would fuck them up. Or more accurately, fuck _him_ up in irreparable ways, damned to want one (1) boy for the rest of his life with no resolution in sight.

Yeonjun doesn't know if he's ready for that. 

( _and Soobin deserves better anyway_ )

The boy in question is warm under his touch, caught up in slowly closing that tentative space between them as they breathe the same air, strangely loud and stilted in the fragile, crystalline silence of the studio. Outside, the world continues to turn and Seoul’s night carries on with it’s loud, bright business, selfishly oblivious to the waves crashing inside Yeonjun's head.

Soobin parts his lips a few inches away from his and Yeonjun just about deciphers the syllables of his name, sweet and precious when spoken by Soobin — like a secret just for the two of them. 

He turns away. Pulls back, widening the distance.

"You know what would be _great_ , right now _?_ " Yeonjun forces blinding cheer into his voice to distract from the fact that he can't quite manage it on his face. " _Patbingsu_."

  
  
  
  
  


They poke at the shaved ice in silence. The store is the one they usually go to — close to their company building, right near a road junction. If you knew where to sit, you had a view of two streets. Yeonjun is grateful for that view now, because it gives him an excuse to not have to look at Soobin.

Not that Soobin is looking at _him_. Soobin hasn’t looked at Yeonjun at all since Yeonjun had drawn back, deliberately angled his face away. He hadn’t looked at Yeonjun when they’d untangled themselves from each other, or during the elevator ride down, or when they’d signed out at the front desk. He hadn’t looked at Yeonjun during the entire walk over here, even when Yeonjun, in his spaced out state, had nearly collided with a woman on a bicycle, stopped only by Soobin’s hand on his elbow holding him steady.

So they just sit side by side, eating their bingsu — strawberry cheesecake and matcha —, counting the number of Hondas and Toyotas that drive past and not saying a word. It’s fine. Yeonjun hates it. 

Yeonjun is about to ask after tomorrow's schedule despite knowing it like the back of his hand and Soobin knowing that Yeonjun knows it like the back of his hand — something, _anything_ to break this deafening silence — when Soobin beats him to it.

“Hey hyung, did you know I used to be _really_ jealous of you?” He says, apropos of nothing. 

Yeonjun’s spoon stills on the way to his mouth.

“Really? That’s sweet, Soobinie.” He tries to play it off as a joke but it misses the mark, both of them too spent and twitchy to joke around. So it had come to this. If Yeonjun’d known they’d had convenience store confessionals in their immediate future, he would’ve suggested they go home instead, where there were other people to act as a buffer and other rooms to which he could flee. There was something to be said about the mortifying ordeal of being known. It was, to put it simply, mortifying. Even with Soobin. _Especially_ with Soobin. 

Especially today, now.

“Yeah, it was just. The whole thing, y’know? How you tried to do stuff and it just _worked.”_ Soobin says, his profile momentarily illuminated by the headlights of a passing car. He had that faraway lilt to his voice that he got sometimes when he was in an unusually melancholic mood. “I could never get anything to work quite like that.”

“Aw, there you go again. It’s nothing special.” Yeonjun tries for a grin as he looks back down at his styrofoam cup. The ice is melting rapidly.

“ _Of course_ it’s special.” Soobin says, just a touch too loud, and Yeonjun winces without knowing why. The clerk clears his throat sternly, staring at them for a moment from behind the counter before going back to his magazine. 

Soobin sighs, glancing at Yeonjun over his shoulder, expression unreadable. “I almost couldn’t stand to look at you, y’know. It made me so envious, but.” When they lock eyes, it’s heavy with meaning. “But it’s like. When you’re in the room, there’s nobody else worth watching.” 

Yeonjun swallows, tongue thick in his mouth. 

“That’s ‘cause I’m Choi Yeonjun, kid. What d'you expect?” 

Soobin smiles, sort of teasing, sort of wry, but the edges of it are already crinkling into fondness. It hurts Yeonjun’s heart. 

“Ah yes, how could I forget. We can't all be perfect overachievers like the great Choi Yeonjun. Always so _cool_." Soobin says it lightly, but Yeonjun's throat has started to close up. Suddenly, he's finding it difficult to breathe.

The day's events come rushing back like a wave that had temporarily receded just to crash against the cliffside with renewed ferocity. 

Soobin must notice, because he’s out of his seat and by Yeonjun’s side in an instant, shielding him from view of the rest of the store. A passing fire truck douses them both in red light, it’s sirens blaring insistent and urgent. Yeonjun knows the feeling.

“Hyung, are you alrig—” Soobin sounds a world away, separated by a wall of shifting water. 

The thing was this: Yeonjun is a goddamn tragedy waiting to happen, in so many senses and spheres. He loves and craves the feeling of being someone to aspire to, loves the attention and the praise, but these days, more often than not, it’s the thought of losing it all that keeps him going. 

_A missed step, a note sung out of tune, a brief flash of exasperation,_

Greed and glory meant nothing if you couldn't meet the great expectations that came with them. Pedestals could get lonely but to fall; to fall was unthinkable.

_Yeonjun is running out of time._

"Soobin-ah," Yeonjun says, voice barely over a whisper. "What if— what if they cut me?"

  
  
  
  


( A memory surfaces, like driftwood on the shore. The two of them in a practice room much larger than the one they'd just come from, a sports drink between them as they tried to remember what it felt like to have legs.

It was before they'd even really gotten close — before the weeks of numbing exhaustion to come, before moving into a new dorm with just the five of them, before sharing shaved ice and clothes and fears and dreams. It was still very new, this, but Yeonjun was trying to make an effort to connect with the boys he’d come to know as his members, and that started with Soobin. 

_"Hyung, can I— can I say something?”_

_"No."_

_"Uh,"_

_"I'm kidding, geez, don’t look so worried! Yeah, go ahead."_

Soobin cracks a smile, but it quickly dissolves as he draws his knees to his chest, looking smaller than Yeonjun had ever seen him look before. It’s wrong. Soobin usually filled every room with his presence, his light, just by being there.

_“It’s stupid, but. Ah, I don’t even wanna say it, it sounds so stup—”_

_“Shut up, it’s not stupid. Just say it, Soobinie.”_

_“Hnnngh okay. So. I'm kinda scared out of my mind? About the whole leader thing, I mean. What if I don't do a good job? I’ve been thinking and thinking and I can’t imagine me ever being able to pull it off? Like come on, the current standard is fucking Rapmon-sunbaenim, for fuck’s sake!”_ Soobin scrubs at the back of his head, face twisted in hysteria. _“So I thought I should just. Dunno, go and tell PD-nim that they made a mistake, that I’m not cut out for it. They should’ve chosen someone else, y’know? Someone who’s been here longer, someone who’s had, had more experience. Someone who can really_ represent _us, as a group. Someone like…”_

He trails off, not finishing his sentence, but Yeonjun hears the end of it anyway. _Someone like you._

There’s a solid ten seconds of silence. Soobin opens an eye from where he’d had them squeezed shut, tilting his head toward Yeonjun for his reaction.

 _“You were right, Soobinie.”_ Yeonjun breathes. _“It's stupid.” )_

  
  
  
  


Soobin's eyes are big again, filling the whole world. They had no business looking as sad and serious as they did. "Hyung, what do you mean?"

"What if I don't do a good job and they just. Cut me from the debut lineup."

“Hyung— what? Why do you think they’d cut you?” Yeonjun would pause to register how cute confusion and utter disbelief looks on Soobin if he wasn’t so fucking _out_ of it right now. 

“Today was. Bad. You were there, you saw how I kept going off beat, slowing down practice. Everyone was pissed, even Beomgyu."

“So you had one off day, that doesn’t mean anything? We _all_ do, hyung, why should that—”

“Listen." Yeonjun speaks faster now, a sense of urgency taking him over, wanting desperately for Soobin to _understand_. "What if they realise they made a mistake and decide m’not ready or that—" dread settles in the pit of his stomach, as if the mere act of voicing it out loud made it true. "—That I don't deserve to be here at all.”

A beat.

“That’s stupid.” Soobin says firmly. He sounds almost angry, his jaw tight. “They won’t _realise_ anything, because it’s _not_ true.” 

His conviction is touching, but it doesn't change how Yeonjun feels in the moment. The facts are there, plain as day.

“No but see, the thing is, it— it kind of is? True, I mean. Evals are _next week_ and I’ve been fucking up a lot lately, Soobin-ah. Not just today. You remember how my voice cracked on Tuesday.”

“Hyung, _everyone’s_ voice cracks, it’s fine—”

"Well, mine doesn’t." Yeonjun cuts in, and realises only after the words are out of his mouth how insanely arrogant they must sound. But it’s true. _Doesn’t. Can’t._ They’re the same thing.

Soobin stares at him. “How long have you been feeling this way, hyung?”

Yeonjun looks at the melting mixture of syrup and ice and decides to be honest. “A while.” he mumbles. _There'd never been any point in lying to Soobin anyway._

Soobin takes a seat again, angling his body to face Yeonjun. 

“Hyung, listen.” He takes a deep breath, flexing his fingers like he’s trying to grab at something Yeonjun can’t see. “You’re like. _Made_ for the stage. I don't know how else to put it. I’ve never known anyone else like you? Not personally, at least. You’re _supposed_ to be a performer, Yeonjun-hyung, you can sing and dance and rap and, and, you’re so pretty and, like, _charming_ without trying—”

“I _do_ try, though.” Yeonjun blurts out. It suddenly seems really important that Soobin knows. Yeonjun isn’t good at stuff, not really. He's just a dude who knows how to convincingly fake competence by trying too hard. “I try so much, all the time. It’s not _natural,_ Soobinie. I’m not a natural.”

Soobin’s eyes soften. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I know you try, hyung. I shouldn’t have said that.” Yeonjun doesn't understand why Soobin is apologising, when _he's_ the one who's a fraud, who isn't doing enough.

“Why—”

"Listen, no just _listen—"_ Soobin says when Yeonjun starts to protest. "You should know by now that you're the best. You're the fucking best, hyung, because you worked for it. And if _you_ , of all people, don't deserve to debut then the rest of us don't have a chance in hell." 

Soobin sticks his spoon into his bingsu with a ferocity that makes Yeonjun jump. " _If_ they cut you, which they won't, of course they won't, but if— if they're stupid enough to cut you, then." He glares at Yeonjun, the line of his mouth firm with resolve. "Let's just leave, hyung." 

Yeonjun blinks, once, twice. "What."

"Let's leave, we can go to any other company, they'd be tripping over themselves to sign you—"

 _What_.

"Don't be stupid, Soobin—"

"No seriously, we can do it. Our contracts are on a circumstantial basis, y'know? And if that doesn't work we can just... we can just _quit_ this industry all together!"

He _had_ to be joking, there's no way he's serious. But Soobin keeps talking, gesturing animatedly with his hands in a way that makes Yeonjun wonder.

"You can go to college — art school! — and I'll start, like, a bakery slash gaming cafe. I've always wanted one of those. I saw a store for rent in Ansan the last time I visited. We can get my brother to handle the finances and stuff once he gets his degree!"

Yeonjun stares at him. He's ridiculous, so completely ridiculous. And so stupid. Did Soobin wake up in the morning with the intention to say as many stupid things as he possibly could before going to bed? How could one reach eighteen and still be so uncomfortably, painfully idealistic; have no sense of how the world worked? Or maybe Soobin was just feigning being obtuse to cheer Yeonjun up. It seemed like the kind of thing he’d do.

Whatever it is, Yeonjun feels himself getting a little choked up because either it’s a slip of tongue — _repeated_ slip of tongue — or Soobin just didn't realise that he'd been saying _we_ all along instead of _you_.

Soobin, who had a bright, bright future ahead of him as the pride of his hometown and leader of BigHits's new idol group, no doubt going to take the industry by storm (they were going to love him so much, Yeonjun knew, because how could you not love Soobin?) was essentially saying that he’d leave it all to go with Yeonjun instead. Like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

"How'll you run a bakery if you can't bake for shit?" Yeonjun says, through a sniffle. Ah, fuck. Stopping his tears after they'd started their freefall had never been one of his strengths.

"I can totally learn? YouTube's a thing." Soobin says. "And it won't just be cakes and cookies or whatever. We can serve, like, pasta and stuff too. You can make your aglio-o-oliv— uh, aglio— whatever, thing."

Yeonjun ducks his head to hide the wetness in his eyes. There’s no way Soobin hasn’t noticed, but he’s pretending not to out of courtesy for Yeonjun’s pride, or whatever miniscule crumbs of it remain. That’s the kind of perceptive, kind person Soobin is. He knows when to give people their space. "It’s Aglio-e-Olio, stupid." 

"Yeah, that."

Yeonjun sniffles again, smiling a little. "I'm just worried about you, Soobinie. I mean, your face and your voice are kinda all you've got going for you, y'know? How’re you gonna survive in any other field?"

Soobin punches Yeonjun's arm. "Shut up, jerk." But he's smiling, and Yeonjun is smiling, and the bingsu is sweet on his salty tongue and everything feels a little better.

  
  
  
  


( Seventeen year-old Soobin blinks at him, hurt.

_"I knew it—"_

_"No, shut up. It's stupid because,"_ Yeonjun says, turning to face him fully. _"Because you're the best leader we could ever ask for. Everyone knew, you know. We knew it'd be you even before they told us."_

Soobin shivers when Yeonjun takes his face in his hands, the edges still soft with adolescence. _"Can't you see? There's no one else who can do it. I wouldn't want to follow anyone else, anyways. It's gotta be you, Soobinie." )_

  
  
  
  
  


“Even if you’re not perfect all the time, is that a bad thing?” Soobin asks slowly, after a while. Yeonjun looks at him, a little incredulous that they're still talking about this.

“I know you hate when you mess up. That’s normal, but,” Soobin pauses, as if struggling to find words. He’s pulling at the soft dark hair curling under his ear. Yeonjun really wants to reach over and grab it, ruffle up the locks and then smooth them down again. Soobin probably doesn’t even know he’s doing it. “I find it kind of, _reassuring_ , I guess? Like woah, Yeonjunnie-hyung is human, too.”

Yeonjun blows a disgruntled raspberry. “The fuck is that supposed to mean. Are you making fun of my insecurities, you rascal?”

“ _No!_ Well, maybe. Just—” Soobin dodges the kick Yeonjun aims at him with practiced ease before resting his chin in his palm, thoughtful. “I like those brief moments where you feel, like, _within reach_." 

His gaze meets Yeonjun's, voice dropping to barely above a whisper, "I don’t want to imagine you ever going somewhere I can’t follow, hyung.”

_Oh._

Soobin clams up pretty quickly after that, as if self-conscious of the fact that he’d maybe said more than he’d intended. It’s too late, though. Yeonjun heard it.

"Oh." He says out loud.

The clerk hollers that they'll be closing soon, and to wrap up whatever they're doing. Neither of them acknowledge it.

"I'm, um, not going anywhere." Yeonjun adds, after an age. It’s strange that he thinks to assert this now and not when Soobin’d been waxing poetic about alternate careers of co-run bakeries and similarly unattainable futures, but it seems to fit. Seems to hold more weight. 

"Ah, um. Okay." Soobin says. His ears are as red as the canned strawberries on his bingsu. 

( _Oh.)_

They walk back to the dorms together. Yeonjun stops them when they’re under a streetlamp, stretching his arms up until the joints crack. He grabs the post and swings around and around until he feels dizzy and breathless and when he finally comes to a stop he holds his fist out for Soobin to bump.

“Let’s make it big, Soobinie!”

“Let’s debut first.” Soobin suggests, suddenly cautious after his outburst, even as he smiles his devastating dimpled smile — but Yeonjun decides that he’s had enough of caution, ranking it somewhere below thinking and morning runs in Autumn.

“Let’s debut, _then_ let’s make it big. It’s fine if we don’t, too, ‘cause from what I’ve heard you've got a pretty airtight contingency.” When their knuckles meet, he grabs onto Soobin’s hand and doesn’t let go the entire way home. 

It’s not quite the same as a kiss, but Yeonjun thinks it’ll do for now. 

**Author's Note:**

> have u met my gf, the almost-kiss fakeout,
> 
> ty for reading!! hope everyone is safe & healthy indoors <3 i'm on [twt](https://twitter.com/yeonbinned) too


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